


Christmas Eve, 1944

by thoughtsofjoy_dreamsoflove



Category: The Sound of Music - Rodgers/Hammerstein/Lindsay & Crouse
Genre: Angst, Christmas, Gen, Nazis, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:07:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28250628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thoughtsofjoy_dreamsoflove/pseuds/thoughtsofjoy_dreamsoflove
Summary: It is Christmas Eve on a snowy battlefield in France, and Rolf is waiting to die.
Comments: 27
Kudos: 27





	Christmas Eve, 1944

“Look at the moon...doesn’t it look like...like a _berliner_ up there?”

“Shut the hell up, Rolf.”

“It does,” he said faintly. “Just look at it.” 

The sky seemed to billow above the trees, expanding infinitely in a great black sweep that dwarfed the earth minute by minute. And the moon looked so round and so white and soft in that monstrous sky, and his shivering hands twitched. He could reach up and grab it. He wanted its powdered sugar to dust his fingers, its hidden red jam to stain his teeth. Who needed a moon? He wanted to _eat._

“He’s right,” another voice breathed. It was Dietrich, a teenager from Stuttgart. “My mother makes a mountain of those things for Christmas. That and _christollen_...she always puts too many raisins in it...but I would honestly murder any one of you miserable bastards for her cooking right now…”

They all chuckled grimly before silence choked them again. The snow burned through Rolf’s uniform. He stiffly brought his hands to his mouth and breathed, but the vapor did nothing to warm them; it seemed the cold emanated from his very bones. They were in France, somewhere. He couldn’t remember. It was just so cold. But it was December 1944, and his troop had been huddling in these goddamn woods for hours. They had been fighting French partisans, and it was going bad, _so_ bad, because they were all just so tired – and so _cold_ – and it was so hard in the forest to even know which figures were the enemy and where they all were. Somehow, part of his troop had gotten separated from all the others, and so they had crouched behind this fallen tree, exchanging enemy fire for a while. But at some point, it seemed, the gunfire had stopped. He knew this had happened, but it felt like they’d been lying here forever, watching their breath make ghosts that lived and died in seconds. There were still gunshots, far away. How far? Sound travelled so strangely, sometimes, in the French countryside. But they could only wait, wait to shoot the men out there huddling in the forest waiting to shoot them. 

It was so cold. It was just so cold.

“It’s Christmas Eve, right?” Somebody whispered. Rolf thought it was Hannes, but he couldn’t make himself roll over to look.

“It can’t be. Is it?”

“Does it matter? Whether it is or not, we’re stuck here waiting to get our heads blown off.” That was Bernd. He never said much, but when he did, it was usually bitter.

“I think it is.” There was a rustle as Paul sat up beside Rolf. He was a medic and older than all of them, at least thirty. He shuffled around in his large bag, which was supposed to have bandages and disinfectant and stimulants and such things. “Now’s as good a time as any, I guess – I have a few bottles of schnapps I’ve been carrying around, might as well share ‘em –”

“God bless your alcoholic soul, Paul,” Hannes said in a gleeful whisper. 

“Merry Christmas, boys.”

The schnapps were passed around as quietly as possible, but renewed fear prickled at the back of Rolf’s neck. The enemy was out there, somewhere, and who knew how far the sound of their movements would carry… Still, he drank heartily when a bottle reached him. His fingers were so numb he couldn’t even feel the cold of the glass. He wasn’t sure how the drinks hadn’t frozen, but it was something, something to put in his belly which felt like a shriveled, mummified animal that had died clawing at itself. His eyes tracked the moon again. So white, and so soft. And so far.

“Last year,” Dietrich whispered. “Before I was drafted, my brother came home right before Christmas. I mean, it was because his leg got infected and they had to amputate it. But still, it was nice...nice to be home.”

His voice grew thick with tears at the end, but Rolf was too tired to even roll his eyes. Some old voice in him hissed, _German soldiers can do better than whining and crying!_ But it was a voice that was no longer as driven, as proud as it had been at the beginning of the war. And he knew, dimly, that there had been a beginning. But he was just so tired – always so tired – and surely he had always been encrusted with snow, had been crystallized into being here in this forest… He shook his head, tried to recall how he’d gotten here, anyway… And what had come before…

“When was the last time you were home for Christmas, Rolf?” Paul nudged him.

He furrowed his brows. How many years had it been? A couple, at least. “I...I’m not sure.” Images from long ago floated up in his mind...his mother humming carols as she cooked...a glittering star atop a tree...mistletoe above the door, and daydreams of the pretty girl at the end of his telegram route…

The fog vanished from his brain in a frigid snap. The clarity of the memory had dragged him back from the lull of hunger and cold. He remembered too much. This stupid, teenage infatuation had haunted him for too long.

It had been cold that night, too – not quite so cold, but still – when Liesl’s eyes had pierced him for the last time, not with love, but with fear, with _hate_ –

He hissed through his teeth. “I need another drink,” he mumbled.

Somebody passed him the schnapps, and he surveyed their ragtag group as he drank. This was not what he’d envisioned when he joined the German army at eighteen. And yet, what else could he do but believe in the brave, righteous mission of his brave, righteous race, even when things were so hard?

Over Dietrich’s sniffles, he whispered, “Just think – one day, the Führer himself may thank us for –”

“ _Shut. Up._ ”

Their heads turned slowly to Bernd, who sat leaning against the log. Hollow-eyed, he drank before speaking again.

“I do not wanna hear one word – not one _fucking_ word – about the Führer.”

The old voice told Rolf to be angry. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It _means_ he sent us here to die. I don’t want his thanks. I didn’t want to fight his war in the first place.”

Paul spoke quickly. “Well, we’re here, so there’s no point in –”

“No,” Hannes interrupted. “He doesn’t get to say things like that. Are you a soldier of the Fatherland or not?”

“I’m a man. Waiting to die on Christmas Eve. With a gun and a bunch of idiots. I guess that makes me a soldier.”

“We’re not waiting to die,” Rolf said, forcing himself to sound inspiring, like Hitler in _Triumph of the Will_. “We’re waiting for _victory_ – and if we do die, it will be for a cause. We’ll be martyrs.”

Bernd just stared at him. His eyes were glassy and vague, dead in his sockets like marbles. They all looked like that, though.

“Martyrs,” he whispered finally, so quiet Rolf wasn’t sure he heard him at first. “Martyrs. That’s great. Do you feel brave, boys? Right now, do you really feel brave?” His teeth were bared. “Because all I’ve seen for five years, this entire war – all I’ve seen is _cowardice_.”

Rolf spat, “Don’t call me a coward. I’ve given up everything to fight for Germany.”

“Everything?” Bernd leaned forward. “Everyone? Liesl?”

 _Liesl._ The name tolled in his mind. “I – what?” _Liesl._ For a moment, Rolf wondered if he’d been dreaming this whole time. Dreams were the only place Liesl appeared now.

“You...you whisper that name sometimes. When you sleep,” Dietrich mumbled. 

Rolf’s face warmed. _Dear God. Am I really so pathetic?_ It had been six years, six _fucking_ years since Liesl von Trapp and her family vanished into the dark, and there were still nights when he returned to that shadowy Abbey and he was seventeen all over again. In his dreams, the Abbey was invaded by a particular tawny glow on the horizon and the faint, bitter smell of a bombed-out city, sights and scents he hadn’t known at seventeen that he had learned very soon after. Why did he remember it so often? He had lived through many worse nights since then, nights like this one, when Death loomed above them. But he supposed that moment had been the gateway to his future, when he had rejected the Captain’s offer to run away. When he had chosen Hitler. Heroism. Hunger. Horror.

“Who was she, Rolf?” Bernd asked. “Your first love, huh?”

“She was a traitor,” he responded, as he knew he should. He drank again, the liquor thick in his throat. “To our people.” 

Bernd snorted. “But _you’re_ the one still saying her name. Do you think she misses you?”

Rolf said nothing. The wind moaned in the trees and he suddenly wanted to scream. How much longer would they have to stay here as the cold grew sharper every minute? If only he could sleep – but then Liesl might appear to him as she sometimes did, in out-of-focus shots of flirting lips and crystal-blue eyes – she seemed a little hazier every year, as if he were remembering a memory of a memory of a memory. 

There had been girls after her. Girls who sat on his knee at a bar during the rare times his troop was on leave, girls with pale hair who played with the collar of his _Wehrmacht_ uniform and cooed. In bed, their fingers would find the twin bullet scars on his right shoulder, and he would tell a bright story about how he got them, leaving out the part where a friend’s brain matter had to be cleaned out of the wounds and he’d howled with pain until he lost his voice. 

He didn’t really miss those girls when he went back to front, but he didn’t miss Liesl von Trapp, either, because the life she had been part of hardly seemed like his own anymore. He was no longer the same boy whose scariest hurdle had been kissing a girl. And she couldn’t miss him, wherever she was, because – well, why would she?

He was still so weak, after everything.

“Rolf knows what loyalty to a cause is,” Hannes said after a while. “You could take some notes, Bernd. Maybe then you wouldn’t be so miserable all the time.”

“Oh, of course. It’s just my attitude that makes me unhappy. It couldn’t be that we’re freezing to death,” Bernd growled, his voice raising gradually. “It couldn’t be that we Germans have become a _pack of murderers_ –”

“It’s not murder, it’s war!” Rolf seethed. “We’re _soldiers_.”

Paul cut in. “Boys –” 

“I’m not talking about _this_.” Bernd swept his hand around at the group. “I’m talking about our compatriots out at the _camps_.”

“Stop it! You’re being too loud. There could still be Frenchmen out here,” Paul hissed.

Rolf’s blood thrummed in his ears. _The camps. The camps. The camps._ Part of him wanted to lay back down and let the snow cradle him, for his brain to grow dim again. Another part needed to fix this, to seal shut the door Bernd had opened, and that part whispered, “They’re work camps for Jews who are being...resettled. That’s all.”

“They’re not. We all know they’re not!” Bernd’s eyes were darker than ever. “You just won’t _let_ yourself know.”

Dietrich was weeping again. Rolf wanted to hit him for being such a child. He didn’t want to be here anymore, not in this forest, not in this war, not on this planet – and memories buffeted him, rumors about killings he had convinced himself were exaggerated and then drank to forget. He heard Captain von Trapp’s voice, an echo across the years, saying _“Come away with us, before it’s too late,”_ and he wondered – wondered – 

“If you really think something so awful is happening, what are you doing about it?” Hannes spat. “Don’t act like you’re any better than we are!”

“I’m not. You’re right.” Bernd’s lips trembled. “We’re all complicit, we’re all killers, every single goddamn one of us –”

“You’re going to get us _shot_ if you don’t shut up!” Paul said.

“And we’ll deserve it!” His shout, high and manic, splintered the wintry dark. “I can’t do this anymore, I can’t, I can’t –”

The other men pounced on him, trying to quiet him down, but Rolf could only stare. He shrank back against a tree and breathed fast and shallow. He tried to remember his last Christmas Eve before the war, but it was all too long ago and the war had devoured everything good in him, made of him a coward, made of him a killer, and now nothing _but_ the war seemed real, not even Christmas – 

Bernd tore away and jumped on top of the fallen tree that had shielded them. He spread his arms wide and grinned; it was one of the only times Rolf had ever seen him smile.

“Here’s to fate! Here’s to Christmas!” He cried. “May the good Lord judge us as he sees fit! _Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht, Alles schläft, einsam wacht_ –”

They all stared as he sang. His voice was a clear, strong tenor, the kind you might really hear in church, and the snow decorated his dark hair like pearls. Rolf almost began to sob. 

Then there was a blast of sound. For a frozen instant Bernd stood above them, crimson rosettes pooling up through his uniform on his chest and arms and thighs. Half of his right ear had vanished. He stared up at the great black sky, his face ecstatic in the moonlight, looking for all the world like a wise man beholding the star to Bethlehem. Then his body toppled and the forest thundered with gunfire.

Instinct kept Rolf flattened to the ground as the bullets sang above him, but part of him wished, more than anything, that he would just stand up, and then the war would be over for him, over forever - and quickly the snow bloomed red, and the spray decorated his icy skin, and he jolted – their fine German blood was so warm – so warm – 


End file.
